Stories of Trees, Woods, and the Forest

A beautiful hardcover anthology of stories by a brilliant and surprising mix of classic and contemporary writers who have been inspired by trees

Trees have starred in stories ever since Ovid described the nymph Daphne’s metamorphosis into a laurel, and the landscape of literature has long been enlivened by wild woodlands, sacred groves, and fertile orchards. This delightful collection ranges from Ovid to Austen and from Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest (via Thomas Love Peacock’s Maid Marian) to Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

Here are forest-haunted fairy tales both classic (the Brothers Grimm) and inventively retold (Angela Carter). There is room in these woods for comedy as well as terror, in Stella Gibbons’s Cold Comfort Farm, and Alexander McCall Smith’s “Head Tree.” Notable writers from around the world contribute arboreal fiction—from South Africa, Finland, France, Zimbabwe, Russia, Martinique, and India, as well as Britain, Ireland, Canada, and America. From Daphne du Maurier’s “The Apple Tree” to R. K. Narayan’s “Under the Banyan Tree,” the sheer range of stories in these pages will leave readers refreshed and dazzled.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.

FIONA STAFFORD is a professor of English literature at Oxford University. The author of many books, including a biograph of Jane Austen, she also wrote and presented the highly acclaimed "The Meaning of Trees" for BBC Radio 3's The Essay. Her book The Long, Long Life of Trees, published by Yale University Press in 2017, was a Sunday Times Nature Book of the Year.

Preface by Fiona Stafford

JOHN LORNE CAMPBELL
Why Everyone Should Be Able to Tell a Story       
           
OVID
Orpheus’ Audience of Trees   
                
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
Head Tree   
                                          
WASHINGTON IRVING
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow   
             
DAPHNE DU MAURIER
The Apple Tree   
                  
SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER
Happiness 

JANE AUSTEN                                  
A Tale                             

YURI OLYESHA
Love           
                                 
D. H. LAWRENCE
The Shades of Spring           

STELLA GIBBONS
From Cold Comfort Farm

RODERICK FINLAYSON
The Totara Tree                                          

EUDORA WELTY
A Still Moment       

OVID
The Transformation of Daphne 

MICHAEL MCLAVERTY
The Road to the Shore       

DOROTHY BAKER
Summer           

JOSEPH ZOBEL
Flowers! Lovely Flowers!      

YVONNE VERA
Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals    

DAMON GALGUT
Shadows         

TOVE JANSSON
The Forest           

URSULA MORAY WILLIAMS
The Outlaws               

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
From Maid Marian             

JACOB AND WILHELM GRIMM
Iron Hans        

ANGELA CARTER
The Company of Wolves     

ANDREW LANG
The Gold of Fairnilee       
           
MARY DE MORGAN
The Pool and the Tree        

JEAN GIONO
The Man Who Planted Trees      

GABRIEL HEMERY
The Man Who Harvested Trees (and Gifted Life)    

OVID
Baucis and Philemon     

R. K. NARAYAN
Under the Banyan Tree